Brief Description of the Prior Art
Many restraining devices have previously been contrived for keeping infants seated upright in a high chair or other seat. The propensity of infants to wiggle in their chairs and slide down until they fall out of the chair is well known. A restraining device capable of preventing such sliding out of the chair will, of course, generally be required to have a portion of the restraint device extended through the crotch of the infant and around the waist.
Many devices have undertaken to safely and inexpensively achieve the objective of preventing the infant from sliding out of the high chair or other seat. Thus, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,235,474, a harness for retaining a baby in a chair is illustrated. This harness has a body section which includes a crotch portion which extends around the buttocks of the baby and up across the abdomen. At a location near the upper end of the crotch portion where the crotch portion crosses the abdomen, the restraint device includes a pair of straps or wing portions which can be extended around the rear side of the seat and there tied together to lock the restraint device to the seat or chair, thereby preventing the infant from sliding out of the chair. The harness shown in this patent further includes a pocket which extends upwardly from the restraint device along the back of the infant, and is dimensioned to fit over the upper portion of the back of the chair. This type of harness allegedly does not restrain or impair the movement of the child's arms and legs, and the back of the infant is supported by the portion of the harness which extends from the crotch portion upwardly to the pocket which is slipped over the top of the chair.
A support harness is also illustrated and described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,050,737. In this support harness, a pair of shoulder straps are provided which extend over the infant's shoulders and are secured by Velcro straps to a tongue which projects upwardly along the back of the infant from a crotch portion which is centrally located in the fabric panel of which the harness is formed. The crotch portion carries a pair of opposed wings which include belts which can be extended around the back of the chair to secure the support harness to the chair.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,037,764, a child carrier is disclosed by which a child may be suspended from straps which can then be carried by a parent or placed over a supporting member located above the child's head. The child carrier device shown in this patent includes a large panel which includes a portion which extends upwardly across the buttocks of the child and is engaged by large flat wings which extend from an abdomen portion of the panel around the sides of the child and engage Velcro strips or other fastening elements on the rear side of the buttocks portion of the panel. There then extends upwardly from the abdomen portion of the child carrier, a pair of elongated straps which form large bights or loops located above the head of the child, by which the child can be carried when seated in the carrier.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,554, an article for restraining and supporting persons in a chair is illustrated and described. The restraining article includes a heart-shaped seat portion which carries a pair of straps at two of its corners. These straps can be used to tie the seat portion to the rungs at the corner of the seat of a chair in which the device is to be used. A pair of elongated straps extend from the point of the heart-shape of the seat portion, and when the seat portion or crotch portion of this device is pulled upwardly across the genital area and to the location of the abdomen, these straps can then be extended around the sides of the body and around the rungs or back of the chair, and there tied or secured to afford the desired restraint of the body of a person sitting on the crotch portion of the article. In this device, the back of the infant or other person restrained is pulled against the rungs or structural members of the back of the chair, and thus the article is not comfortable to the person restrained.
Other devices which may be employed for restraining infants or others when they are seated in a chair are those devices which are shown in Stauffacher et al U.S. Pat. No. 2,404,108 and Johnston U.S. Pat. No. 1,376,625.